breathe me
by autographs
Summary: "Lydia just looks at him and wonders. Wonders how she came to love this broken boy as much as she does."


**a/n: so this kind of takes place after 5x05**

 **you can guess what song the title's from**

/

Living in Beacon Hills means savouring every rare moment of peace you find yourself in, especially if you're trying to heal after being stabbed in the torso by a werewolf/Kanima hybrid science experiment.

Which is why a rainy Tuesday night sees Lydia Martin curled up in bed quietly reading a novel. As much as she would like to be completely involved with helping the pack figure out exactly what they're up against this time, she needs to take the time to recover.

And anyway, her mother has been watching her like a hawk so she doesn't have a choice, really.

Her doorbell rings. Lydia's checks the time to see that it is 12:30 in the morning and her eyebrows furrow. She can think of only a few people who would come around her house at this hour. One is an apologetic Scott with important news that couldn't possibly have waited until morning. Another is Stiles, but he hasn't done it since he started dating Malia. Lydia steadfastly ignores the familiar feeling of disappointment that thought creates.

She gets up from the bed carefully and goes to her mother's room to see her in a deep sleep. Lydia feels a pang of guilt. She can only imagine just how much her mother has worried and stressed about her over the past few weeks. She continues moving towards the front door. She looks through the peephole and doesn't hesitate to open the door for the person.

"Stiles," she breathes, more surprised than anything. A cold gust of wind makes her shiver and she pulls the ends of her sweater sleeves over her hands. She ushers him in quickly and shuts the door behind them both.

He's damp with rain water and shaking violently. Alarms begin going off in her mind and she runs quickly to get extra blankets. She immediately guides him towards the couch. He sits by the armrest and curls up into himself as she takes the blankets and wraps them around his shoulders. His face is blank but the look in his eyes let's her know that his state of mind is pure chaos.

"Stiles?" she whispers again as she settles with her legs crossed, facing him. "What's wrong?"

He isn't really looking at her so much as staring blankly ahead. "I did something bad. I did something really, really bad."

Her mind begins racing. She focuses on keeping her voice level. "What did you do, Stiles?"

"He kept coming at me. I was just trying to get away." He's stumbling over his words and his breathing keeps getting more and more erratic. She worries she's going to lose him to another panic attack.

She holds his shaking hands, hoping to stabilize him a bit. It works for the most part. His eyes are focused on her now. There's a desperate kind of sadness in them that makes her heart squeeze in her chest. "What did you do?" her voice is quiet, but firm.

"I killed him," he gets out, his voice cracking as he speaks. "I killed Donovan."

She does a mental double take at this. She holds it together, maintains her composure; she has to, for him. "How? What happened?"

She tries to keep up as he recounts what happened. His sentences are fractured and his breathing is laboured, like he can't manage to get enough air in his lungs. Somewhere along the line she releases his hands as she gets lost in the story. His eyes are shining with unshed tears.

When he's finished, he brings a hand up to muffle a sob and Lydia swears it's the most heartbreaking sound she's ever heard. "I killed him," he murmurs mostly to himself. She watches him as he looks at his violently shaking hands and curls them into fists. He tries to take in slow, calming breaths but nothing comes of them. His tears follow the curves of his cheeks.

Lydia just looks at him and wonders. Wonders how she came to love this broken boy as much as she does. She wishes she could heal all his brokenness. She knows she can't. She knows he's still with Malia. She knows a lot of things. But he's falling apart before her eyes and she also knows she has to do everything in her power to try to hold him together.

She takes his hands again and gently coaxes them out of the fists. When he relaxes his fingers, she looks up at him to see him already watching her intently. She brings a hand up to his face, wiping at his tears with her thumb. "You caused an accident that killed him. But thank God for that otherwise he would have killed you and that's just not an option," she says firmly, looking him dead in the eyes.

"But Scott." His voice cracks.

"Would understand," she finishes. She gets on her knees and leans in, taking his face in her hands and cupping his cheeks. "You were in danger, Stiles. You can't let the guilt crush you."

His breathing quickens again. Any more of this and she knows he'll dissolve into another panic attack. "What's going to happen to me?"

It dawns on her then, what this is all really about. She thinks back to the time when he was possessed by the nogitsune. She remembers how much chaos it caused, using Stiles as its vehicle of destruction. She knows Stiles had blamed himself for all of it; he'd told her that much himself. It was taking some time but he was on his way to understanding that he was not to blame for what the Japanese spirit made him do.

But there was no Japanese spirit to make him do this.

She shakes her head fiercely. "Stiles, listen to me. You are not becoming something bad. There is too much good buried in that heart of yours. The fact that you feel this much remorse just goes to show that, despite what's happened, _you are still you_ and _you are still good_."

She can tell that her words are calming him. His breathing begins to slow. He's looking at her with that same awestruck expression that he regarded her with after she kissed him in the locker rooms; he's looking at her like she's a beacon in his world of darkness, like she's his saving grace.

"Thank you," he whispers, his voice thick with emotion.

She doesn't say anything. She doesn't even take her hands away from his face. She leans in, touches her forehead against his and closes her eyes. He smells like Stiles, like something woodsy and soap. He reaches up and gently rests his hand over one of her wrists. His thumb begins to rub across her pulse to back of her hand and they sit together in silence, their breaths syncing up.

Another rare moment of peace.

/

 **can't spell "stydia fanfiction" without "endless angst" am i right**

 **wrote this entire thing after watching 5x05 because the feelings were TOO MUCH**


End file.
